


Rations

by recrudescence



Category: Firefly
Genre: F/F, Femslash, Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-15
Updated: 2009-11-15
Packaged: 2017-10-02 19:51:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/recrudescence/pseuds/recrudescence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>River loses her voice and they lack honey for her tea. There's at least some peppermint powder, better than nothing, and she writes and taps and pantomimes out responses to everything, and together it all means she's about as coherent as usual.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rations

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Femslash Porn Battle. Prompt: mechanical help.

Dalucia ain’t a friendly moon. The sand swirls all over the place and Kaylee meanders through the shabby downtown area with a cherry-printed scarf knotted across the lower half of her face to block off the worst of it. It’s hard to haggle over the sound of the wind howling and without the advantage of a smile on her side, but she manages. Mal swore the stormy season would be over by the time they landed, and Kaylee don’t generally mind the captain not knowing everything—makes him more human-like, when he makes mistakes just like anyone else. She gets back on the ship and stows her things away before anyone else returns. Dalucia’s far enough off the beaten path that everyone’s been allowed out and about this time.

There’s a cost to it. River loses her voice and they lack honey for her tea. There’s at least some peppermint powder, better than nothing, and she writes and taps and pantomimes out responses to everything, and together it all means she’s about as coherent as usual. Simon says being cooped up on Serenity so long can’t be doing her immune system any favors. Jayne says she’s a sight more pleasant now that she isn’t talking crazy. That’s an argument no one’s ready to be having, but Kaylee takes River’s wrist in her hand and draws her out of the common area just in case it happens anyway.

“Got you something. Think you’ll like it.”

She takes it out once she’s finished smoothing off the grit that’s accumulated, slipping off clothes and shaking them out over the trash chute; her own first, then River’s, leaving her standing pale and nearly naked on the bunk floor, unconcerned and distant-eyed like she’s calculating some equation Kaylee can’t discern. She dresses in castoffs and whatever her brother managed to grab with him on the way out of civilized life, bras meant for a little girl and dresses meant for someone with no shape whatsoever. Kaylee doesn’t feel too bad about it most of the time, since River doesn’t seem to mind, but it still ain’t right, a girl her age not having many things of her own. “Was either this or a pretty blue skirt I saw, but I figured you wouldn’t mind not having it on account of you’ve got skirts already. It was real nice, though, had little—,”

River smiles and traces the Chinese characters for Gui Xian, the turtle, into the dust with one pointed foot.

“—yeah, little turtles on it. Have to ration what you buy, though. Save up for special occasions and make the best choice you can.”

There’s one hand at the nape of her neck, then River’s mouth pursing a cool little kiss there before she’s got Kaylee’s old blankets all wrinkled up by spreading herself out on top of them like she’s settled in for a spa session on some fancy resort world. Not concerned with anything, from the look of it. It’s tough enough to tell what goes through River’s head even when she’s got a voice to go with her thoughts, but Kaylee ain’t ever found that to be as creepifying as some.

“Anyhow, now’s the perfect time to try it out, since you can’t get loud on me.” River can shriek and cry out and moan like nothing else and she hopes nobody’s heard. Then again, River does that regularly enough for no one to assume it’s from going to bed with Kaylee, so that’s one positive spin to it. She cleans her hands off till they’re pink, can’t have her getting some other kind of sickness from whatever’s out there, then curls a finger under the band of River’s underwear.

Newly out of the packaging, new batteries to go with it just in case her old ones are gonna get petty and refuse to recharge this time, and River’s wriggling and flushed before Kaylee even gets her all the way undressed. So ready for anything Kaylee gives her, still something exciting and fresh for her, and that’s kinda sweet and kinda sad, too. Kaylee had her first kiss when she was all of eleven and River once said she’d never gotten so much as that before heading off to school, and everyone knows she’s not about to say what went on there.

Kiss her with messy lips and probe inside her with a finger or two where she’s tight everywhere and aching for it, that’s the best response Kaylee can give. River’s got the biggest eyes Kaylee’s ever seen on a human face when she flicks the thing on. She takes her time, ducking and licking at her ‘cause she likes the way just the lightest little touch is enough to make River tremble all over, feeling the hum of the vibrating toy against her tongue. Slowly working it in, easing real careful and not pushing any more than she has to, since River ain’t ever been with a man and ain’t likely to be any time soon so this is the best Kaylee can do short of sneaking a local onboard next time they’re planetfall someplace with a decent selection.

River goes to pushing her hips down to take the whole of it up inside herself, then, breathing too fast and making Kaylee let out a shocked little sound. Shaking and clenching up, pretty hair all tangled up on Kaylee’s pillow, and it don’t take long at all till she’s quivering like a leaf and gasping _yes_ more than once up against Kaylee’s cheek.

“Whispering doesn’t require vocal cords,” says River, all soft-low and reassuring like that, petting a fingertip over Kaylee’s lower lip when her mouth drops open and smiling sweet as the honey they don’t have. “I’m _rationing_.”


End file.
